The anglophone Australia and New Zealand are two of the youngest nations in the world. The first Europeans who took their residence in Australia came 205 years ago. They did not come because they wanted to. Australia was founded as a penal colony.
They were eventually followed by voluntary immigrants. Until now, the Australian with British ancestor are the predominant part of the population. Among them, the area where a nowadays Australian most probably can find their ancestors is the region around London. The second important group of immigrants were Irish, mainly responsible for the huge number of Catholics in Australia compared with Britain (30.4% in 1851; Turner, 1972: 5).
According to Hammarström (1980) Australian pronunciation is more or less the Cockney one of the last 18th century, having developped independently ever since -it missed the RP-contact arising in Britain in the 19th century-, but conservatively -like most exported languages are. Indeed, Australian English is different from any accent existing in England (Wells, 1982b: 593).
Talking about pronunciation, we shall see that Hammarströms theory is too one-sided, not taking into account e.g. the Irish element.
Most of the Australian specialties in vocabulary derive from English local dialects. "On the other hand, in recent years the influence of American English has been apparent... Thus we find American truck, elevator, and freeway alongside British petrol, boot (of a car) and tap." (Crystal, 1988: 240). Few aboriginal words were borrowed, though a third of the place names is taken from their languages, with in increasing number in our days (Bähr, 1974: 274). A short excerpt from Aussie vocabulary (including slang words, which are more accepted than in Mother England; Bähr, 1974; Crystal, 1988; Baker, 1978):
| Australian English | British English |
|---|---|
| this arvo | this afternoon |
| footpath | pavement |
| weekender | holiday cottage |
| sheila | girl |
| lolly | sweet |
| drongo | fool |
| paddock | field |
| singlet | vest |
| Aussie | Australian |
| cobber | mate |
| dinkum | honest |
| shanty | pub |
| chromo | prostitute |
| broke for | in need of |
| fed with | tired of |
| chunder | vomit |
Regional variation is practically absent in Australia. However, in opposition to the situation in America, Australian English knows are a great social range of different speeches.
Through this influence you can distinguish Educated Australian from Broad Australian (Bähr, 1974: 274).
The vowel system of Broad Australian is very similar to
Cockney. Educated Australian is
close to RP.
The main specialties of the former is [
] in unstressed position within
a word where the English use
[
], and the ending -y, which is pronounced []. The
sounds on the
continuum at the left border of the vowel diagram are less open,
e.g. that is sounds for an Englishman as if it were
thet. [
] is produced as [
] in most positions, in words
like dance even [æ]. Like in the American South [
] occurs in
words like pound (Bähr, 1974: 276f.).
As for the consonants, there are no glottal stops (in spite of all the similarities of BA to Cockney). Some Australians, maybe due to Irish influx, produce rhotic words.
There are some unsystematic peculiarities of Australian pronunciation that should be quoted (Bähr, 1974: 277; Wells, 1982b: 597):
| Australian pronunciation | RP |
|---|---|
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
[ ] |
| teacher's:
[  ] |
[ ] |
| teachers:
[ ] |
[] |
The main peculiarity that makes an Australian be recognized as such is the particular intonation pattern (Wells, 1982b: 604). As a whole, the accent is marked by a pronunciation reminding of southern English, but with a "nasal twang" ("Australian twang", described as being slightly different from New England twang) and a "drawl" as in America. In fact, the broadest dialect is defined by the longest vowels.
"Native speakers of NZ can distinguish an Australian pronunciation quite readily, though the converse is not always true: Australians tend to classify a NZ accent as coming from a distant and unfamiliar part of Australia, such as Tasmania. Native speakers of English from other parts of the world, on the other hand, can usually not distinguish an NZ from an Australian pronunciation." (Hawkins, n.d.)
Hence, the differences are very slight. They are "... mainly a
matter of slight changes in vowel quality." (Crystal, 1988: 240).
Different sounds can be found in the lacking of the æ-sound in
dance, words like ultimate produced as [
],
and ea as in New Zealand pronounced short:
[
]
(Bähr, 1974: 284). In some areas, Scots influx is to
be felt: in parts of the Southern Island, e.g., one can sometimes
hear the r rolled (Crystal, 1988: 241). As expected, also the
voiceless wh ([
]) is common in NZ.
In vocabulary, Maori influx is greater than the Aboriginal one in Australia, but still quite small. In NZ, however, the Maoris have most of the time been an accepted minority who are left a lot of space for caring for their culture and language.
In any case, the Kiwis (as NZers call themselves) have their own slang, too. Official words as benzine instead of petrol, gas, though, are relatively small in number. As in Aussie and Yankee languages slang is more common usage than in England. Some examples (Daley/Lutterjohann, 1990):
| Kiwi slang | meaning |
|---|---|
| Enzed | New Zealand |
| pom | Englishman (pejorative) |
| bach | AusE: weekender |
| pop | put; prepare; go... |
| telly | TV |
| gig lamps | glasses |
| kitchen tidy | dustbin |
| jug | litre of beer |
| screw | salary |
| cocky | farmer |
| quid | two dollars |
| strides | trousers |
.